“Eventually—or so goes the strategy—people won’t be able to imagine having their options defined by a programming grid. Not coincidentally, Netflix has been vying with Amazon to become the premiere source of streaming series for young children, for whom having to wait for new episodes of their favorite shows to air is unfathomable.”

“Scenes of stabbings, shootings, rape, decapitation and mutilation invariably received a TV-14 “parents strongly cautioned” rating on network TV, according to the Parents Television Council study released Monday. But similar fare on cable typically was given the most stringent label, TV-MA for mature audiences only, researchers for the media watchdog group found.”

“In particular, the obsession with codifying, regulating, recording, reviewing, verifying, vetting, and chronicling, with assessing achievement, forecasting achievement, identifying weak points, then establishing commissions for planning strategies for regular encounters to propose solutions to weak points, and further commissions empowered to apply for funding to pay for means to implement these solutions, and so on.”

“As the winter season of New York high culture kicks into full swing, one thing seems quite apparent: there is little appetite for the new in the performing arts here, because innovation carries so much financial risk.”

“The orchestra, which had already been downsized from 88 to about 79 members under previous cost-cutting efforts, will be shrunk again by another 11 percent for next season to number in the mid- to upper-60s. The MSO also eliminated seven administration employees, and now has a staff of 30.”

“Art Basel may not have instantly made Miami into a global art hub, as some predicted when it first landed on Florida’s shores in 2002, but the fair has been steadily driving year-round museum attendance and arts patronage.”

Do you think the editor’s decision to refrain from intervening in the text was an instance of the dereliction of standards in the publishing industry, or was it an indication of lingering prudence and respect for the practice of literature within what the author would invariably refer to as the “military-industrial publishing complex”?